


Through the Forest

by miss_hula_girl



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, LeviHan Week
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-08 17:35:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7767016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_hula_girl/pseuds/miss_hula_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An expedition through the forest leaves Levi and Hanji's squad in dangerous positions</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Separation

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is my attempt to link all the prompts of levihan week into one multi chapter fic

“Auruo! Eld! Take the right! Gunter! Petra! Left with me! Hanji! Take your group up through the middle! We’ll meet on the other side! Go!”

Levi shouted out directions as they entered the thickest part of the forest. The chance of them getting separated was too much so they needed a plan. Now he just needed everyone to stick with it. He already knew what was about to happen when he heard her.

“Wahoo! Straight through everyone!”

“Hanji, no! We need to stick together!” Levi followed after her.

A mess of wires and people flying through the trees leads to trouble. Eventually, the trees get too thick to get through with their gear, and it’s almost too dark to see what’s going on. Crashes and thuds so filled the air.

“Oof! Get off of me ya big oaf! What are you doing here?” Nifa crawled back up on her branch as Auruo sat up on it.

“Ow! I don’t know. I just hit this branch and couldn’t find where to go next, thought I could regroup and get going again.”

“Auruo? Nifa? Is that you? Where is everyone else?” Moblit called out from a lower branch.

“I’m right here,” Eld responded, jumping down onto Moblit’s branch. “Well, now what?”

The mixed squad thought quietly for a minute, hoping to be able to hear someone else around them. It was so quiet; they weren’t expecting a voice from above to answer them.

“We stick together now. Stupid glasses already got us separated, so now we need to stay together and get through these big ass trees.”

“Levi!” Nifa squealed.

“But if you’re here, does that mean Hanji is with Gunter and Petra?” Eld thought aloud.

“I hope,” Levi responded.

* * *

“Hanji! Are you ok?” Gunter landed on the branch where Hanji was sitting.

“Yeah! Of course! It’s too thick to continue any further like this. I’m guessing others are probably around, realizing the same thing.”

“Yeah, we’re down here. It’s me and Goggles,” a surprisingly loud voice startled them.

“Ah! Petra! Hello, love! How are you two doing?”

“I think we’re ok. _Where’s your glasses? Oh, ok_. Goggles found his glasses so we’re just fine.”

From up ahead, a voice shouted back at them.

“We seem to be the only ones over here. We can just jump branch to branch. It’s pretty quiet.”

“Yes, since shorty’s plan gave us no time to work out the situation, we’ll have to stick together to get through this. Everyone, follow Keiji’s voice!”

Leaping tree to tree, the mismatched group made their way through the forest. Occasionally stopping to examine some broken branches.

“Titans?” questioned Goggles.

“Titans,” Hanji simply answered. “They’re in here. We’re high enough to avoid most of them but if we find an abnormal, we may be in trouble.

* * *

 

On the other side of the forest, the other group was making their way, finding similar discoveries.

“We’re high enough up that most shouldn’t be a problem, but keep a watch,” Eld explained.

“I can’t believe we got separated!” Moblit said exasperatedly.

“Tch, I can. But we’ll get back together. Just keep going.”

“It looks really dark up there,” Auruo pointed out.

Nifa chuckled, “Scared?”

Auruo stared straight ahead. “Only of what I can’t see…”


	2. Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The now separated squads face a new problem deep in the forest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt for day 2 of Levihan week 2016.

The broken squads continued to move through the forest. The further they ventured, the darker it was.

Hanji, along with Petra, Gunter, Goggles, and Keiji, had to stick close together so as not to get separated again.

Keiji stopped abruptly. “We’re going to have to join with a rope or something. It’s blackout dark!”

Hanji pulled a rope out for everyone to hold onto, then a small candle. Thankfully she collected random items before leaving. One never knows.

“Hold on, follow me. I’ll keep the light up front,” she commanded.

Hanji lit the candle and the squad moved forward, but just out of sight, came a loud noise.

Branches broke and large thuds sounded like they were moving towards them. Suddenly, a small sliver of light broke through the tall trees in front of them. At first, the group smiled, but then realized what this meant.

“Titan!!” whispered Petra. “What are we going to do? There’s not enough room to fight it? And it’s still dark even with the small opening now.”

They stood frozen, watching the tian’s moves. It was very active for being dark. Abnormal, obviously. And tall. Tall enough to be a serious threat.

As if the titan could feel the 5 sets of eyes, it flipped its head around and made contact with them through the maze of branches. A hand reached out and smashed the branches between them., causing the squad to scream and scatter. They moved any way they can to try to subdue the titan, but all it did was aggravate it more. Hanji hoped the others weren’t too far. 

* * *

 

Some ways away, Levi, followed by Moblit, Auruo, Nifa, and Eld, heard the same noises. The area wasn’t as dark there, but once the clearing opened up a bit, they could definitely see the titan’s movements. And that’s when they heard the screaming.

“Let’s go! This way!” Levi shouted, pointing his sword.

The branches were the perfect distance to jump across, so the squad made their way to their comrades in trouble.

When they arrived, it was chaos. Everyone was trying to get the titan wherever they could. Finally a slice across the face and one on the nape brought it down.

As the titan fell, everyone gathered on a group of close branches to regroup. No injuries, everyone accounted for, titan down. Now to just stay together this time to get out. They watched as the titan disappeared, then decided to talk through a plan.

Levi made his way down to the ground, looked around, and tried to scope out the situation.

“I think,” he shouted up at Hanji, who had been going from branch to branch checking things out as well. “Maybe this way. What do you see?”

Hanji started to open her mouth to answer, but more cracking and breaking caught her attention before she could get a word out. Then she saw it. A tree slowly falling, coming right where she was standing and going to land right where Levi was.

“Levi!! Watching out!” Hanji shouted and jumped down to the ground. The tree fell into the branch where she was standing. As it fell to ground, bringing many others with it, Hanji grabbed Levi and yanked him out of the way. They both curled up in a ball until the noise and commotion had stopped. They heard shouting and tried to get up to answer. They were both fine, but there were still problems.

“Levi! Hanji! Are you ok?” Eld’s voice boomed. 

Hanji coughed an answer, “Yes! But I think we’re trapped!”


	3. Trapped

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get worse for Levi and Hanji

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuing with the prompts for Levihan week

As the dust settled, Hanji coughed her response to their crew. Fine but trapped. The branches were too heavy to lift up. She noticed Levi on the ground and started to worry.

“Levi?! Levi! Are you ok??” Hanji shook him a little until she heard a groan.

“Ow, yeah. Just my arm hurts. Must’ve landed on it. What’s going on?” he asked as he looked up. “Aw, shit. Can we get out?” Levi got up to a sitting position so he could evaluate the situation for himself.

Hanji could walk around a little hunched over, so she decided to try to move some branches. “I don’t think so. Think we need more help to move them.”

She sat back down beside Levi, noticing the nice space they did have to move. At least there was that.

“What do you think, clean freak? See anyway out?”

Levi assessed the situation more, including the pain in his arm. He decided it was probably just from catching himself when she pushed him aside. No big deal. But the trees trapping them however…

“Maybe pushing that one over? Seems like the easiest way to find a big enough opening.”

Hanji and Levi both got up to a squat and positioned themselves under the big trunk.

“On the count of three,” Levi began, “one, two, three!”

They both pushed as hard as they could. The tree began to move ever so slightly. Pushing harder and harder, the tree lifted more and more until loud crashes knocked the trunk and them back down.

“Shit!” Hanji shouted as her backside hit the ground hard.

As the dust settled for a second time, they noticed their little area became smaller. Now a squat wasn’t even possible.

“Damn it! Are you guys still ok?” Gunter’s voiced sounded muffled through the pile of trees closing in on them now.

This time it was Levi’s turn to cough out a response. “Yeah, but we can’t do anything now. Not even get to our feet to push. You’ll have to do it!”

They heard the bustle of movement and shouting of commands from around them. Occasionally random shuffles of branches occurred above them.

Levi and Hanji situated themselves back to back for some comfort and just listened to the commotion, nothing more to do now but wait.

“Sooooo, what’s n…”

“Just shut up, shitty glasses.”


	4. Pledge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now trapped and unable to move, Levi and Hanji have a deep discusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 4 of Levihan week 2016

They sat in silence for a while, Hanji feeling a little hurt. Levi picked up on this and did something that surprised her, and himself as well.

“Sorry, Hanji,” he mumbled out.

Hanji hid her surprise, but just let a little smile creep across her face.

“It’s ok, it’s not an ideal situation. I was just trying to lighten the mood.”

More silence between them as they listened to the squads problem solve a way out of this situation.

Hanji sighed as she realized she probably had something to apologize for too.

“Sorry I’m so reckless. I can’t help it sometimes. Making decisions in the heat of the moment isn’t always my forte. If we would have approached the situation in groups like you suggested, we probably wouldn’t be here.”

Levi thought about that for a minute. Honestly when he had originally said to break up into groups, he didn’t realize the forest would be like it was. It would have been harder for 3 groups to get through and meet back up.

“It’s fine. It was frustrating but it turned out ok. And this,” he waved his arm towards their ceiling of trees, “wasn’t related. We probably wouldn’t have had everyone around to take down that big ass titan if we had broken up into my 3 groups.”

“Still. It’s something I want to work on. Making better decisions in the moment and listening to people. Do you ever keep mental notes of things you want to work on? I do a lot. I reflect a lot after missions. Write stuff down, think about what I noticed, what I did, what I could change, what couldn’t have been helped. Forces me to grow as a person. Also probably has kept me alive.”

As Levi listened to her words, he thought about himself. He does do this, but not as formal. Just a quick _next time_ thought usually.

“I guess I think about that stuff a little. I think I need to listen and trust in others more. I mean, I do trust you and Erwin most of the time, and my squad usually. But I could do that with others too.”

“Maybe we can work on our challenges together? Drop hints to each other when we catch the other person. So we can have it known in the moment instead of always just after. And then reflect together. It’d be nice to see another person’s view too.”

Levi sat for a minute and thought more. He could definitely help Hanji, but he wasn’t so sure of how well he’d take her help. Then it was as if Hanji read his mind.

“I’m not saying attack each other, maybe just take one thing to work on, and one instance. I don’t want our relationship to turn into just correcting each other. We are who we are and there’s not much changing that. But maybe we can work on not being so intense sometimes.”

Levi leaned his head back against hers and sighed.

She moved and turned around, almost knocking Levi down. “Let’s do it!” Hanji said, reading his body language. “A pledge, to let each other in and help each other out. We’ll work so much better together if we can do this. Please?”

He turned around to meet her, eyeing her suspiciously, for no reason really.

“Fine, but if I start getting annoyed--”

“Just tell me you aren’t ready to talk about it and we can do it later! That’s fine!”

“Ok, then,” Levi agreed as a sliver of sun began to grow around them.


	5. Transformation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The squad notices a differences after Levi and Hanji emerge from the tree pile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 5-Transformation, for Levihan week 2016

“Hurry! Get out! Come on!” Moblit was leaned over a tree, reaching in to help Levi and Hanji out.

Levi hadn’t realized how long they’d been in darkness in the forest, but the light burned his eyes, causing him to close his eyes tightly as he climbed out.

“Shit, that’s bright!” He fumbled around, crawling down the fallen trees to the ground.

A loud crash alerted him that whoever was holding the giant trunks had dropped them. Next thing he knew, a hand was resting on his shoulder.

“Come on, let’s make a plan. We need to all sit down together.” It was Hanji’s voice, calm, collected, ready to take the lead if needed. She could be well put together if she needed, and she saw the need for it now as the squads gathered around them.

“Ok, take a knee, everyone,” Levi began. “What’s our current situation?”

“Well, we haven’t really gotten to assess it yet. We were all too busy trying to get you out,” Gunter admitted.

Levi didn’t stop rubbing the heel of his hands into his eyes. Must have dirt in them too.

“That’s ok. That was the number one priority. Levi, are you ok? Do you need some water to wash your eyes out?”

“Yeah, I think so. Thanks.” A mysterious hand had passed a canteen to him, letting him run the warm, yet refreshing water over his eyes. He sat there, head tilted back, waiting for his eyes to flush. Hanji watched him and continued.

“Ok, we may be here for the night, seeing as the sun has already started down. We need to scout some possible paths out, gather firewood, set up camp, and just figure out our next move. Levi, what do you think?”

He was jolted back to reality by her question. She’s doing it. Just like we talked about. Well, what else needs to be done?

“Uh yeah, I’ll lead some on a short scout to find a way back out. Hanji will stay here and lead the camp set up. We also need some food, so some need to be out looking for something to eat. Eld, help Hanji, along with Moblit. Gunter, Petra, and Auruo, come with me. My eyes are better now. Goggles, Keiji, and Nifa gather some supplies for camp and find some food while you’re out if you can. Sound good?”

Everyone nodded and mumbled in agreement.

“Ok, to the trees, let’s go.”

The squads split and headed out to do their assigned jobs. As the only group alone, Nifa, Keiji, and Goggles were able to say what everyone else was thinking.

“Do they seem to be working together better? I know they usually butt heads, but this was surprisingly smooth.” Nifa turned to look back as she talked, as if Levi or Hanji could hear her.

“Yeah, I agree,” Goggles nodded. They work well but yeah, usually it takes a while to get an agreement.”

“Or it usually ends up with them doing their own things anyway,” Keiji added.

“I don’t know what happened down there, but something changed. Maybe they were forced to talk and listen to each other.” Nifa suggested.

Goggles and Keiji agreed.

“Well hopefully this little transformation lasts and it makes the rest of this easier. Getting out of here will not be easy,” said Keiji.


End file.
